Upon Further Review… Judge will decide on bail conditions for Clare in mid-August; home arrest, ankle monitor may be removed

July 30, 2018

Although I implied in an earlier post that Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis seemed to have already accepted the bail package that was proposed by Clare Bronfman’s lawyer, Susan Necheles, it may end up not actually being the case. As of yet, the judge has not issued an order stating he has, in fact, approved the proposed package – and sources now indicate that the EDNY prosecutors may be preparing opposition papers for the judge to consider.

At a minimum, Clare Bronfman, who is being referred to as the “The Godmother of NXIVM” in some circles because she is now the de facto head of the NXIVM syndicate, will have to return to court on August 21 with proof of ownership concerning the various properties that she and her sister, Sara Bronfman-Igtet, have pledged as collateral as part of her $100 million bail package. Given her well-documented history of perjuring herself – and NXIVM’s well-documented history of fabricating documents – it is expected the court will scrutinize these documents carefully.

Assuming that Clare’s proposed bail package has not yet been approved by the court, here are some things that Judge Garaufis will, hopefully, take into consideration:

– The guarantees by Basit Igtet and Clare’s mother, Georgiana Havers are almost as meaningless as Keith Raniere’s “personal guaranty” for $10 million. Between them, they might posses a total of $4 million in assets. Why are they qualified to act as sureties on $50 million of Clare’s bail package?

– Although Godmother Bronfman has not been charged with crimes of violence, she is the one who financed those crimes. Doesn’t that make her an accessory for those crimes – and shouldn’t her propensity for funding violent crimes be taken into consideration in terms of having her placed under house arrest? (Don’t forget that Allison Mack is currently under house arrest – and that Allison has been paid by Godmother Bronfman for quite some time).

– Clare is a documented perjurer and cannot be trusted. I know personally that she perjured herself in my case – which is why the feds eventually dismissed all the charges against me that had anything to do with her. And I know she got caught lying in the civil computer trespass case (See the “Chart of Lies” that got filed in that case).

– Clare should not be allowed to use any of her trust funds to pay for the legal expenses of any of her co-defendants. In her proposed bail package, her trustees indicate that they will approve expenses for “legal fees and court costs” – which the judge should limit to just her own legal expenses. Allowing her to make her co-defendants beholden to her for legal representation means that they will be much more prone to lie on her behalf – and that their attorneys will be much less likely to challenge any of Clare’s claims.

– The judge should also require a full accounting of any of her co-defendants’ legal expenses that she’s already paid for – and any other funds that she transferred to other potential co-defendants for that purpose.

– The court needs to know why the bank that was previously managing Clare’s assets decided to drop her as a client because banks don’t just walk away from $132 million of deposits without a reason. Was she engaging in illegal money transfers – or asking her trustees to violate their fiduciary responsibilities to the trusts?

– The court needs to have a full accounting of all the money that Clare has ever inherited – and how much of it went to pay for NXIVM-related expenses. Based on published reports – and her own court filings – it appears that Clare has burned through more than $450 million since she first got involved in NXIVM. Where did all that money go – and has some been hidden away in offshore accounts? If she, in fact, has squirreled away a couple hundred million, that would seriously undercut the financial harm she would suffer if she fled before trial.

– The letter that was filed with court by the two trust advisors on Clare’s trusts indicates that they will immediately turn-over $25 million to the court if Clare’s “…bail is revoked as a result of a failure to appear as required in the criminal case pending against her in the Eastern District of New York”. That wording is way too limited – and would not cover other situations that would lead to her bail being revoked: e.g., she gets caught trying to flee; she hires someone to intimidate or harm potential witnesses against her; etc.

The judge may well deny the request of Godmother Bronfman that she not be subject to home confinement while she awaits trial (He can decide to make exceptions for her to meet at her attorneys’ offices to work on her defense). He also has discretion as to whether to allow her to remove her electronic monitoring [ankle monitor] which she now is wearing. He may feel that its removal is not an accommodation the court need make for the head of a criminal enterprise.